Miracles of Ancient Wonder
by Whynoteh
Summary: The logical conclusion if you took the tone from the "Red" trailer and applied it across the series. A soft reboot of my previous three works, but they don't need to be read. This is meant to be initially obtuse. It takes place 3 years after the start of the first volume. Lots of fighting, lots of blood, lots of death. Plz read
1. Chapter 1

_The death knell rings so faithfully, a crescendo of chimes resonating with every man, woman, and child. A beautiful sound. Can you not hear it? For every heart we stop, another receives its sum of fear, a new melody of despair that pierces all silence, and we march to that faltering beat. They will bend, they will break, and they will be consumed._

 **Early Fall, One Month after the Disaster**

Falling from the sky was not nearly as uncommon as a Hunter might desire. Possibly, Ruby herself wouldn't judge someone's preferences. She rather enjoyed the feeling of free fall. Looking to her left, she admired the rising sun on the horizon, the sea glistening gold across black ripples, and flaming sections of Grimm streaking downward from the same place she started her descent.

Looking up to the heavens and in front of her was less pleasant. A larger Beowulf with a head as big as her torso, getting slapped by her tattered red cloak and Ruby's own long hair, snapped his jaws like any rabid dog might toward their frightened prey. Not that she was afraid of course, but that fact wouldn't slow him down.

Delivering a defiant and almost playful kick to his chest, the one-eyed Huntress attempted to dislodge her scythe out of the monster's shoulder, but found little luck. Since the incident, the average size and intelligence of Grimm doubled, and where this Beowulf may have been a dumb, human-sized beast, he now held Ruby's weapon inside his left shoulder, preventing her from unloading lethal rounds into his partially armored body.

She fired a round in hopes of yanking Crescent Rose away, but instead dug deeper into his now limp arm and sent them both spinning at a sickening speed. "Bad beasty!" she laughed, shoving her foot into his collar bone. Savage and driven, the monster lurched forward and sunk his fangs into her firing hand, giving momentary panic to the much smaller, weaker fighter. "Bad! Bad beasty!" she yelled again, less humor in her voice. Aura still strong, the fangs did not pierce her, but pain prevailed, and aura would eventually fade.

More motivated, Ruby hooked her left leg around his arm that still held her weapon, and kicked with all her might at his clenched jaws. A dozen frustrated kicks later, Ruby felt the pain evolve from bruising and crushing to _mutilating_ and crushing, blood now flowing from her hand to the wolf's mouth. She shouted something indistinct with pain-addled anger. Her free hand dove to the pack on her lower back, and whipped out an automatic pistol she had picked up somewhere, then aimed into the Grimm's eyes

 _Click click._

She threw the empty gun at him, and searched the pack again, this time pulling out a rusted revolver.

 _Boom boom click._

One bullet cracked his skull armor and the second passed through his snout, his own blood mixing with her's in his throat. He gave a wet roar. The recoil stopped their spinning.

Breaking away from him though still connected via Crescent Rose, she took note that the ground, which was very much _not_ the sea, was mercilessly approaching. She had an idea.

Torquing herself around, she twisted their combined being as to put the Beowulf on the bottom, then shoved her revolver into his snapping jaws and removed one threat, then pulled herself closer to his frame by pulling on his still violent hand. She tried her best to control his wrist, but his strength proved too much as his claws raked down her face, carving a three-mark trail from her brow, over her missing eye, and halfway across her cheek. Another pained howl.

Overcoming the injury, a wide grin worked its way onto her face, formed by teeth red with blood and stained by time in the wilderness. She let go of her favorite weapon and slapped the monster's mouth. "Goodbye," she said.

Jumping with a Hunter's power, Ruby floated for a key second, the monster crashing fatally into the ground. Falling an easy fifteen feet, Ruby landed atop the corpse, proud of her handiwork.

Not one for wasting time, she glanced down at her mildly mangled hand, and reached into her pack for her radio. She couldn't find it. 'Did it fall out while we were spinning?' she thought, irritated. Ruby would've preferred to call for pickup so she could be treated before the pain overcame the adrenaline, but one can't always win. A moment later her radio hurtled atop her head, knocking her down. Further irritated, she picked both herself and the radio up from the mud, the scarlet Forest of Forever Fall still wet from last night's rain. Inspecting the radio, it worked regardless of the large dent, and from there Ruby called for extraction.

Following directions, Ruby dragged her scythe downhill. After some time, the sound of aircraft screamed overhead, then a high shadow momentarily blocked out the daylight. The Huntress instinctually dashed behind a tree to hide. A gust of wind ran its course through the forest, the sound of great wings soaring away. Ruby allowed her heart to slow before going on her weary way, slogging along until she found a road where she then shot a flare into the early morning sky.

While she waited, the combination of starvation and blood loss she suffered made her light headed, almost blacking out at one point. Eventually, a faded green tank of four treads and one long cannon stopped a dozen feet from her, a treaded trailer carrying supplies screeching to a halt behind it.

The hatch to the turret opened sluggishly and with weight, Sun's upper body springing up immediately after. "Ruby!?" he called to her, confusion in his voice. "You're hurt, how bad?"

She apathetically shrugged, "Nothing terrible I think."

"Good." He nodded, noticeably more at ease. "Aren't you supposed to be escorting a ship?"

Walking towards then climbing the heavy tank, she answered, "A civilian carrier, yes, I did, and Weiss is still with them. I just had to remove some hostile work conditions from the work site."

"Ah." Moving aside to let her in, Sun explained in kind, "We're getting cargo to the airstrip you probably just came from."

As she bumped against him on her way down, she asked with a hint of worry, "Did you see the Nephilim?"

Sun looked to the sky. "We were under a tree canopy when it passed. Couldn't see it."

"Hey Blake, hey Neptune," she greeted the tank crew, "where did you get the supplies, and uh, Blake, could you help me? Preferably with morphine?" Ruby plopped herself down in the passenger space behind the driver, who at the moment was Neptune.

"So we're going now?" asked the once blue-haired boy, his head now crowned with natural brown hair and his red coat patched with grey steel armor.

"Yeah," answered Sun, "follow the road south." Taking his seat below the hatch, head still popping out, he continued, "We got the supplies from a town. Well hidden, no survivors, lots of unused supplies."

The turbine engine groaned to a faster revolution cycle, and all the cabin members lurched back and forth as they took off. Blake limped over to the gunner's seat next to her team leader, her dark leg brace stiff yet functional, and set her medical kit atop her lap. Like Sun, Blake donned a leather bomber jacket with a lined collar, though where Blake's was black leather and gray fur, Sun's was tan with dirty fleece. "No morphine. Let me look at your hand." Blake spoke no more words than was ever necessary.

"Ah man!" Ruby exclaimed, pulling the tattered headband from her bad eye, "I was saving this! I still have my eye lids, right?" Blake nodded in affirmation. Ruby peeled open her cut eye lids, removed a cotton ball from her empty eye socket, and pulled two white pills from the cotton. She swallowed them dry, gagging as she said, "ah I regret that, I should've drunken something, bleh, ew." Balling up the cotton again, she shoved it back into her right eye. "Alright, give me a minute to psych myself." She leaned back both cathartically and lethargically and showed Blake her hand.

Looking it over, the cat faunus shook her head with disappointment. "I'll get your face with iodine, I'll have to stitch your palm, and I have to brace two of your fingers, which are broken, so... I'm going to put you under." She finished with two yellow eyes focused on her partner's one drifting, flickering silver eye.

"Fine by me." She let her head roll back and took a deep breath.

Blake soaked a cotton ball with a clear liquid and held it under Ruby's nose, and moments later, she was out.

After some vague pain and time, she started to become aware again when she felt water running down her throat, and then sound came back to her and a faint ringing stopped. She was awake again and gripped the water bottle Blake had held in her mouth. Once satisfied, she checked the mirror to her right and saw iodine staining the skin surrounding the claw marks on her face. Looking down at her right hand, she admired Blake's medical attention, her two fingers braced competently and bandaging snuggly hiding the stitches underneath. "Thanks," she coughed, smacking her wetted lips.

"No problem. While you were out, I got some things for you." The uninjured of the two held up a plate of crackers. Normally, no one was excited for crackers, but crackers with fresh cheese was a completely different animal.

"I love you Blake, never think otherwise," Ruby giggled, taking the plate, cutting the hard and brittle cheese, decorating the salty crackers with the slices, and eating them all with one hand. Blake might've been impressed, that is, were she capable of feeling impressed in the first place.

"I looked through the haul we got, I'll think you'll appreciate this." The medic kit on her lap had been replaced with a wicker basket of goodies. "A black, long sleeve flannel shirt, keep you warm. A canvas vest, lots of pockets, again, black." As she named items, she displayed them for Ruby, putting them down by her feet as she went along. "A new flare round, I think it's green. A can of soup. A new bundle of bandaging. A pipe bomb. Oh yeah, I went ahead and filled one of your magazines with bullets, put the remaining in the one in your gun. It's half full now."

Ruby nodded. ".50 cal, right?" Her eating never slowed.

"Of course. Normal gunpowder rounds though, not dust. You'll shoot through wood and thin metal, but not stone or anything. And I didn't find too many."

"I know."

For the last item, Blake pulled from behind her a sheathed longsword with a forty-inch blade from what Ruby could tell. The sheath was odd to say the least.

"Found this on a dead Hunter. Longsword-turn-bladed whip, sheath uses 12 gauge shotgun shells, could you use it?"

Ruby nodded. Using other weapons saved her ammo and kept her on her toes, lest she grew complacent with her scythe.

"Good, I got two bandoliers for you, fully loaded."

"Op!" Neptune yelped, forgoing english for expediency, "Goliath up ahead, I think it's going for the camp."

Sun drew his attention from behind the tank to the front, and without the need for binoculars, the Goliath, impossibly large in all dimensions, walked tall through the forest it trampled underfoot and could've acted as it's own geographical landmark for miles. "That's what that sound was!" When he did inspect it with his binoculars however, he made out little specks dancing atop the colossus. He squinted hard to make out any details.

Blake jumped into the gunner's seat, head rested against the padded periscope and hands gripped around the joystick as she lined up her cross hairs with the distant black mass. "Ready."

"How did we miss something that big?" contemplated Ruby aloud.

"No wait," Sun dissuaded her, "Jaune's group is already there." The blond tank commander slouched back in his armored throne, binoculars falling to his chest. Gray, greasy fingers rubbed at the creases in his brow. "Radio the camp, the scouts in that sector are dead."

Racing alongside the Goliath's feet, every step the colossus took launched Jaune and his steed into the air. Great and old oaks snapped like twigs under its weight, but the sound of tearing lumber echoed like lightning. While the body appeared to move slow and meticulously, the sheer distance covered by each step put the monster's pace at almost as fast as Jaune's horse.

Needing to make an impression to grab the Grimm's focus, Jaune turned in his saddle to grab the tool for the job. His hand passed over his sword and sheath on his hip, passed over the lance strapped alongside the horse, but grabbed the steel recurve bow from the horse holster. Switching grips, Jaune let go of the reigns and reached for one of the special arrows in his kit, a steel wire tied to just behind the fletching. Knocking it in and drawing back, the knight let sail his arrow into the front left leg of the Goliath. Steel wire screamed from a coil inside the horses satchel. "Alright Levon," he shouted, patting the chestnut brown stallion along his neck, "let's not mess it up this time! Hya!"

Rider and steed bolted forward and in, putting themselves at the center of the beast before slowing down, wire pulling taut and wire wheel spinning. Within moments, they fell behind the rear legs, then raced back out to the left, then dashed in front of the rear left leg again, then fell back, ad nauseam, until the leg was wrapped several times with wire. "Oh shit," he groaned, "time to commit." He locked the wire wheel so it wouldn't turn.

Jaune steered them back under the body, but instead of wrapping around the same leg, they crossed over the right side, where then the rear right leg stepped into the wire, suddenly placing extreme tension on the steel. Blood sprayed from the wrapped left leg, and a howl permeated the air like hell itself opened up. Jaune and Levon were expectedly flung forward and tumbled violently along the shattered woods stamped into the mud.

High above and on top of the Goliath, Ren and Nora braced themselves as the Goliath dropped to a knee, its trunk finally not swiping at its brow. Now was their chance to slay the threat.

Nora, clad in dirtied pink, gray, and white, with custom made silver greaves to wield her hammer and greaves to stomp on her foes, and military issued armor not dissimilar to Jaune's original chest piece, marched forward to strike the peak of the Grimm's skull. Superficial bones shattered and flew away to reveal bald spots of skin stretched over the true skeletal skull. Whipping her long pony tail to part the stray hairs from her sweat coated cheeks, she yelled to Ren, "Now Ren! Hold it down!"

Far less put together, Ren donned a torn green sweater and tan cargo pants, his leather boots sporting holes and scuffs everywhere, with only his chest harness seeming to have any care given. Even his black hair was shaggy and greasy, the pink highlight faded in the mess. Sliding to the target spot, he screwed a conical explosive to a segment of pipe he pulled from a quiver of his own, then stabbed once into the flesh, securing the explosive perpendicular to the skull. "Go!"

Nora dropped her belligerent instrument upon the make shift stake, driving it two feet deep, leaving one side of the pipe still above the cracked and wedged bone. The Goliath roared and shook his head, but the two Hunters held their ground.

"I set it for fifty seconds," he spoke, voice even. He pulled another segment of pipe from his quiver, screwing it to the bloodied pipe already in the Goliath, then leaned back to give Nora room.

She struck the pipe again, driving the explosive another two feet deeper. Ren screwed on another pipe and they continued their pattern until Ren stood up and stepped back. When he covered his ears, Nora followed suit.

A high pitched bang rattled their bones, but fortunately did far worse to their prey. The pipe shot halfway out of the fissure and the whole of the colossus shuddered before falling forward, limp, its brain matter liquified.

Nora allowed herself to slide down the face of the beast, down the trunk, and onto the ground, while Ren removed the pipe first. The simple pipe that had been directly connected to the bomb was shattered, but he could reuse the other half dozen two-foot segments.

Across the scarlet forest of Vale, past the beaches, out at sea, a super carrier welcomed a small convoy of civilian transports and escort gun ships onto its upper deck. From one of the transports, two brilliant figures strode with majesty off the ship ramp and took in the moment, all the while soldiers, sailers, and civilians stopped to look at the two women.

The first was Weiss, immaculate and clean, a high ranking Atlesian long coat draped from her slim shoulders, cinched around her waist and tight against her metal corset. Myrtenaster dangled from her right hip, and her sister's saber dangled from her left, with Ironwood's hand cannon holstered on the small of her back to finish her noble flair. She unceremoniously wiped some dribbling snot from her running nose with gloved hands.

The second was Pyrrha, tall and regal. Layered, flowing crimson fabrics and sashes both covered and hid underneath an assortment of light gold armor that almost sparkled in the rays of the rising sun. She carried her shield on her arm, which sheathed her original sword-turn-rifle-turn-spear, and holstered her newer very big rifle-turn-lance on her back, red and gold motif kept intact. As she walked, her hair flowed freely behind her, long since unbound by her tiara, and when the wind picked up the long strands of hair, portions of her sarong, cloak, mantle, and spare sashes, the etherealness of her motion forced many to gaze upon her undeniable beauty. Many even believed the merciful propaganda being pushed about her being the invincible Goddess of Fall, inheritor of the Maiden's powers. While she was the Fall Maiden, beautiful and deadly, a booster of people's morale, she was far from invincible.

A prototype gunship landed in a space adjacent to where Weiss and Pyrrha walked, its twin turbines slowing to a low hum. The cockpit glass popped up and slid down, a energetic Yang in pilot fatigues stained with oil jumped down and ran up to her friends. As she started talking, she removed her black aviators and held a cigarette in betwixt her fingers. "Hmm hmm, you smell that wonderful sea smell? Fish?"

Weiss sniffled through her impatient expression, responding in monotone, "No I don't smell–" she stopped, pulled her head back with an offended air and angered tone, "No I don't smell anything! Ugh, I'm sick of being sick."

Yang laughed, but stopped as soon as Pyrrha walked passed her with zero regard or acknowledgement. "Hmm." She gestured to her remaining friend, "where's Ruby?"

The heiress, now the spokeswoman and inheritor of her family's legacy, sighed. "She jumped before we cleared the beach."

The blonde pilot chuckled. "I bet the Major will love that, maybe she'll give her a talking to?" she imagined humorously, wiggling her head a bit as she did.

"Doubtful. Forgetting everything else, she still did her job."

"Well obviously. Anyways, where are we going after this? Now that we're here?"

Weiss looked at her feet, then Yang, then the sunrise, then the command bridge of the boat. "We should talk to them anyways, easiest way to get things done," she answered, waving roughly in the direction of the command bridge as she started strutting away.

This was the world people lived in now. Three years ago, Weiss and Yang had started their first year at Beacon in the fall, wide eyed and children still. Three years later, after White Fang attacks, espionage, civil war, tens of thousands of deaths, and after the summer incident, the sea became the safest place to house non combatants, the mainlands remain a constant war zone against the recently formed Black Fang, the Grimm, and Salem's personal elite. Ruby, the youngest of her pack, stands tall as an adult, a woman, and as the spearhead of the fight against extinction. Gone are the times of adventure, teenage shenanigans, the contemplation of one's goal in life, and the innocence of youth. There is work to be done, and while each person searches for their own moments of solace when they can, every soldier must hold position, every warrior must charge forward, and every beast awaits the hunt.

-End Chapter 1-


	2. Intermission 1

**Pre-Disaster**

[Email:

 _Recipient: General Clearbook_

 _Sender: Weiss Schnee_

 _General Clearbook, I think it would be in your best interest to arm your forward fire-teams with additional members specializing or at least equipped in heavy ordinance or weaponry. I am not aware if reports have made it to you that the average size of Grimm and their numbers have increased, and the caliber of weaponry issued is not enough to bring them down, at least not in sufficient time._

 _I do not wish to have to collect anymore of your men's limbs for the medical teams._

-End of Message-]

[Email:

 _Recipient: Weiss Schnee_

 _Sender: General Clearbook_

 _Yes, Ms. Schnee, I have received these reports. If you paid attention, you would've noticed that the medical teams were sent with additional ammo to compensate for that reason._

-End of Message-]

[Email:

 _Recipient: General Clearbook_

 _Sender: Weiss Schnee_

 _I fail to see how that solves the issue General. More ammo would be fine in the event of human resistance or inner border control, and more ammo does mean that long turn we will be armed, except that we have lost another strong point to the Grimm, along with the stockpile we had accumulated there, all since the last time I messaged you. We need heavy weaponry now. I say we have the cannons, machine guns, and targeting systems from the confiscated Atlesian Paladin MkII's dismounted and made operable for your men. Hell, at this point, just mount them as jeep turrets for all I care, we need all the help we can get._

-End of Message-]

[Email:

 _Recipient: Weiss Schnee_

 _Sender: General Clearbook_

 _I'm sorry, who is in charge again? You can pretend to have authority and an understanding of military logistics, but you don't have either. If I get a message questioning my competence with baseless notions again, I will have you detained and returned for trial._

-End of Message-]

[Email:

 _Recipient: General Clearbook_

 _Sender: Weiss Schnee_

 _I am dumbfounded. Who's going to detain me? The police? No, they're in the city, protecting the people. The infantry? No, there won't be any left before long and they're too busy following my orders. Special Forces? I am currently the fourth best human to human fighter on this continent, your special forces are scared of me you little shit. What decorated rock have you been living under to be so far removed from reality? People are dying, your lines are crumbling, the last CCT tower is next. Are you worried about your next pension if these messages are read? Are you worried about the bi-annual military review? Well guess what, I found the committee head of the review, along with his family. Don't worry, they're dead. No one's reading these messages. I can't contact any support out here, so you better get on the horn and call in someone, anyone who can help us, or your ass is going to be on the line too._

 _As for baseless notions, I would not be surprised to find out you have no idea what we're dealing with, so let me lay it out for you._

 _The removal of a threat comes when the creature is considered dead. True death occurs when the brain ceases function, thus preventing purposeful action and reaction. "Close enough" death occurs when the body ceases to function, preventing action. We take either on the battlefield. To achieve "Close enough" death, either the brain can be destroyed, the heart can be destroyed, the spine can be damaged, each limb can be rendered unusable, or any of the many ways that prevent oxygen from reaching the brain; blood loss, loss of ability to breathe, system shock, and so on._

 _The most common cause of death in skirmishes is psychosomatic death, or rather death by shock caused by pain. When a body undergoes immense pain, it can go into shock if the individual is acutely aware of the injury, which causes adrenaline and dozens of other chemicals to be released. This will cause the cardio vascular system to tighten and prevent proper blood flow. This will starve the brain and kill the individual over the next 20 minutes if they don't die of blood loss first or their brain suffers catastrophic failure where it in essence seizes and gives is a method of death that can be achieved with a singular pistol round to most any part of the body._

 _ **Grimm do not suffer psychosomatic shock.**_

 _Thus, the goal when combating a Grimm is one of the following; destroy the spinal integrity, close enough; puncture the heart, good within 30 seconds; ventilate the lungs, will die if left alone; lobotomize the brain, instant true death._

 _A normal human will weigh around 160 pounds. We are facing Grimm that are several thousand pounds. Ignoring the armored parts of a Grimm, regular pistol rounds will not get farther than the skin, shotgun slugs and assault rifle rounds burst and lose momentum half a foot in, battle rifle rounds can make perforations that reach internal organs but only with focused fire, and only high powered rounds can crack the skull of one of these beasts. Fifty caliber and above can penetrate meaningfully, but we don't have that. Belt fed machine guns utilizing battle rifle ammo could make an opening, but we don't have that. We can't wait until Atlas gunships decide to grace our days with their presence, we have no time left, hurry up and send us_ _ **anything**_ _._

-End of Message-]

[Package Delivery, Addressed to General Clearbook; Letter Portion:

 _Dear Clearbook,_

 _I am writing to you in hand for one reason. It isn't because I or your men didn't fight valiantly to defend the CCT tower. It isn't because the Grimm are an impossible force to fight, though they are overwhelming to be sure. No, I have to write to you because you have the blood of hundreds of thousands of lives on your hands. Your incompetency and latency in action has doomed your men, the citizens you swore to protect, your country, humanity, faunus, all the other generals relying on this station, this post, everyone. The only reason this parcel will make it to you before the Grimm hit the city is because I had to send scouts to prepare for evacuations. In the parcel is something you decided impossible to deliver._

 _A gun._

 _Don't worry, I already loaded it, already cocked it._

 _I suggest you find a comfy chair, probably the one you've been sitting in this whole time, and put it to your head._

 _Pull the trigger. No matter what, you will burn for what you've done._

 _Sincerely, Weiss Schnee_

 _-_ End of Letter-]

 **Thank you for reading this intermission. I was going to upload the second chapter, but after rereading it, I feel its a little... too edgy, I gotta improve it first. Don't worry though, the next 10 chapters are still already written, and these intermissions are not included in those.**


	3. Chapter 2

**Early Fall, One Month after the Disaster**

 _Tell me, why do humans fight each-other? I don't mind of course, I quite enjoy it, after all... you wouldn't be here otherwise. But I always marveled at their propensity to ignore the greatest threat and divide themselves. No shared ideology, no common goal to follow, no satisfaction for complacency... no... I have never seen a human settle for perfection. You look confused..._

Yellow sparks exploded at the intersection of blades.

Moonlight was bright that night, and for a faunus like Blake, that was more than she needed. For Jaune, he wasn't really looking anyways. Two hands on his sword, the knight shifted between several stances and angle of cuts, little real consideration put towards tactics or finesse, as his sparring partner wasn't going to attack out of pattern. Each powerful swing was a step forward.

"Don't hold it in," she said, receiving his blows with her proper sword.

He sighed. "Alright." After several swings in, he started. "Do you think Pyrrha still loves me?"

Blake slid the cleaver sheathe over her sword, stomping into Jaune's space and slamming his sword in different directions. "No," she barked, stabbing once at him and throwing him off. "You can thank Amber's soul for that."

Anger flared up inside of him, and he pushed back, his swings slightly more powerful and giving more trouble to Blake. "But Pyrrha's soul is still hers. There has to be something there still."

"She's moved on Jaune, you were a phase, a novelty. Now focus!" Blake's inflections were sharp and mean, but cold in a comforting way. "What did she do this morning? Was that love?"

The young man in full armor lashed out once before returning to pattern. Voice ragged with a hint of choking back tears, he answered, "she ignored me, disregarded me, and chose to volunteer for overseas without so much as looking at me."

"Exactly!" Blake barked back, now slamming her cleaver downwards at him repeatedly, violently, in a way that only conveyed frustration. "Now tell me! What are you to her? What did she say? What does it mean?!"

The yellow sparks illuminated Jaune's quivering lips, and he began drawing sharp breaths. "She said she couldn't be with me!" he shouted, stomping one step back, then gave Blake a furious uppercut swing that after blocking actually lifted her up off the ground. He continued with even simpler swings, each one more powerful than the last. "I was a commodity! I was something interesting when we first met, and now she's bored of me! Why bother fostering any sort of love when you could bathe in the admiration of strangers!" His voice started breaking, tears clouding his eyes. "She said the distance and time we spent apart made her think it wasn't worth pursuing!"

Over time, Jaune and his classmates had learned more properties of their aura, such as how as a entity of their will taken form, it protected them and their tools as base instinct. They also learned that with the right mindset, a surprisingly difficult mindset to achieve given the simplicity of the concept, their aura could overcome someone else's protective properties, though the specific method differed from person to person. The yellow sparks flying from Blake's and Jaune's blades was the greater quantity of Jaune's aura spilling out every time it clashed with Blake's aura, an aimless discharge of power. But with Jaune's increasingly heart wrenched mindset, his caustic power was forming miniature explosions that would both knock away Blake's cleaver, and, allow his blade to pass through the no longer aura protected spot and cut into her blade.

"After all my waiting, all my love and patience, she just gave up!" he sobbed, every third strike missing Blake's weapon entirely. "When everyone loves you, what's the love of one helpless loser! I get it Pyrrha, you're too good for me!"

All tactical patterns had dissolved. Jaune swung down at Blake, again and again, missing half the time, every cut over shooting and cutting through the ground, grass and mud flying both behind him and somehow in front of him. Blake stumbled continuously backwards, all her might going into swinging against his strikes just to cancel part of the momentum, her hands aching.

"She said she was confused! Didn't know how to feel!" his sobbing went on. "Even with Amber in there, there should still be a part of Pyrrha that cares, that did love me! Was she just pretending the whole time!"

Jaune slipped in the mud. His sword cut into Blake's Gambol Shroud, stopped, and slipped from his hands. He stumbled towards her, threw a tired punch, missing by a foot, and fell down. He curled into a ball.

"Does she even care?" he whimpered. "She just gave up. Did it all mean nothing?"

Nora and Ren approached from the surrounding woods. Blake crouched down and ran her hand through his hair, stroking his blond locks with care. "Good job Jaune. You did good. Just remember, Pyrrha will always love you." Lifting herself up and dismissing herself, she whispered to Ren and Nora as they passed, "He let it out. I think we successfully drew in some Grimm."

"Okay, we'll get him standing again," Nora whispered back.

Ren crouched down beside his good friend while Nora kneeled as to put his head in her lap. Like Blake, she stroked his hair, and Ren grabbed his hand. "Pyrrha is too far gone, it's the consequence of her burden. There is a part of her that cares, very much so, but..." Ren looked to Nora for help.

"But, Pyrrha has to bury that under the weight of her task. She's the Fall Maiden, she is one of four people with the responsibility of saving the world by force. Every life is in her hands, every baddie is in her sights, and she, in the most literal sense, has no time for relief."

"In fact," Ren added, "or I guess I should say, is it really that different from how you've acted in the past?"

Jaune coughed before he could speak again. With great despair, he muttered, "Me and Pyrrha will be dead before the fighting's over. I just wanted to die with hope."

Nora reached down and kissed his forehead. A sigh. "No, not if we can help it."

Blake found her way back to their campfire, a leg of deer cooking on a stick, Ruby cutting off bits of barely cooked meat and fat and stuffing the steaming clumps into her mouth, utterly at peace with the world. The cat faunus scratched the back of Sun's neck as she passed him, tearing off a bit of the meat herself. "We should expect Grimm soon."

Levon the horse neighed, and Sun yawned, "Good."

Neptune scratched at his chin, restless. "You don't need to hurt him like that."

Blake and Sun looked to their friend. Blake started to open her mouth, then paused. "I'm... confused. I... what?" She grabbed another piece of food and sat by Sun.

"We're all hurting as it is and you have to make the guy cry?" Neptune continued as it became apparent he was somewhat upset.

"I did that just now to attract the Grimm... and to let him vent. You realize that much, right?" Blake defended herself, still confused.

The once blue haired boy rubbed at his face in frustration. "I-I get that, you're right, but did you really need to do that? I mean, you need negative emotion to draw the Grimm, but don't ya' think having all of civilization collapse and the deaths of millions might be enough?!" Ruby stopped eating finally, taking notice of Neptune's rising anger. They held their breaths. "I mean, I'm still pretty upset about the whole catastrophe, I don't know if my family is alive, a good number of my friends are dead, I can't bathe with any regular schedule, and I'm starving half the time– I'm scared, I'm pissed– Ruby might be fine, fucking eating and zoning out 95 percent of the time, that's freaking great for her, but for the rest of us... do we need to aggravate the point?"

Ruby flinched. She felt as though she might be under attack.

"Dude, chill, I get it, we get it, but all of that was to help him in the long run," Sun offered, holding out his hand as he gestured for Neptune to lower his voice. "Calm... try to take it out on the baddies, please."

The angered man grabbed his trident and stood up, stomping away into the darkness. They could hear him muttering to himself as he went, "It hurts enough as it is..."

Ruby looked to her meal. A frown stained her lips as she sympathetically asked herself, "What is he mad about?"

This time, Sun grabbed his weapon and stormed away. "Take a guess. We all have a million reasons to be pissed."

The younger girl shook her head in shame. "Tsk, it was a stupid question."

Many miles north, at a southern cape of Solitas, the continent of Atlas, snow sprinkled down on the airstrip like sweet confectionery sugar turned bitter, the cold enveloping the men, women, and children refugees that were unfortunate enough to not dress appropriately. Yang ignored their fearful gazes from the high perch inside her cockpit, stomach churning at their pitiful sight.

Pyrrha marched down from the ramp and out of the light, disappearing briefly in the night time darkness before stepping back into the light of a gazebo. The once hopeless people now swarmed the idol, reaching for her as though her touch would save their worlds.

Weiss waved at the departing Pyrrha, though received no such gesture in return. Thumbing the red button on the wall, the gunship's rear ramp moaned into live, raising to seal the passenger cabin and clamping shut. The man refueling the ship slammed the nose twice to inform Yang she was set to take off.

In the time Weiss spent pulling out a crate from under a seat and retrieving a paper bag, Yang lifted the craft high into the air, then accelerated to a point where the twin jets locked into horizontal thrust.

Her gunship was designed to produce enough lift with its shape alone to not require vertical thrust via jets if it was going fast enough. Essentially, it went from a Close Support VTOL to a Transcontinental Intercepter Jet Plane. Originally a enhanced Atlesian Gunship, Vale shipwrights took the blueprints and experimented with aerodynamic consideration and improved armaments, named the new model a 'Ramhorn,' brother to the 'Bullhead,' and gave the component parts to certain pilots to build their new death machines. Yang was one of the chosen pilots, her durability and resistance to a fiery death acting as the main factor in her selection.

The white haired passenger dipped her head under the threshold between the cabin and the cockpit, and slithered around the clutter to hug Yang's seat. A brown paper bag was thrust in front of the blonde's face, admittedly rudely, but she didn't mind.

"Is it what I think it is?" she asked, interested but never looking away from the dark sky ahead of her. Snow pelted the windshield, but blew up and away before it could stick. It was the gusts of wind that carried the snow that shook the aircraft and rattle cabin parts off out of sight.

Weiss leaned in, sniffed Yang's hair, then replied in her usual high then low inflections, "Soap and a sense of shame? No."

"Is it Weiss's love for humanity?" Yang gave a exaggerated gasp. "Oh wait, that's right, that never existed."

She pursed her lips in an attempt to not smile. "It's wine, aged twenty years." The bottle, once removed from the bag, was a deep maroon and the cork betrayed no signs of prior opening. "Thought you might like some too." A cork screw was pulled from the bag as well.

"Ha, surprised you didn't want to share any when Pyrrha was here." Yang cleared her throat.

Her body rocked with a shoulder shrug and a roll of the eyes. "She wouldn't want any I thought, too responsible. Wouldn't appreciate it either. Besides, she's a tea drinker... I think." Weiss squinted, unsure of her statement.

"Says the tea drinker."

"What does that mean?"

"Well you– You're going to drink it right?" Yang asked, hand fluttering in inquisitiveness.

"Yeah."

"And you're saying Pyrrha wouldn't like it as a tea drinker– if she is one– and yet you too drink tea."

"I like bittersweet, it's different," she retorted with sincere innocence.

"What about Pyrrha?"

"Excuse me, I don't know," Weiss said, regressing back to her prim and offended inflections. "Do you know what Ren's favorite flower is?"

Yang scratched her imaginary beard, slowly beginning with obvious doubt, "Storm flower–"

"Bad example," she said, punctuating 'bad' with the launching of the cork and taking the first swigs. "What's his favorite tree? There we go."

"Hell if I know, what am I? A botanist, miss bossiness?" Weiss handed her the bottle from which she took her portion.

In the loud ambience of the cockpit, Weiss mumbled, eventually speaking up, "The bossiest botanist brokered a bedlam..."

Yang pulled the lip of the bottle from her own, then saw the lipstick she tasted. "It's good, but... you still wear lipstick?"

"I like to look good, what's your excuse?"

She shrugged then blew a raspberry. "Don't actually know how to respond to that. Let's see... the bossiest botanist buffalo brokered a bodacious bedlam..."

Weiss snapped her fingers. "The bossiest botanist buffalo basked in the brokered bodacious bedlam!"

She bobbed her head side to side, pondering her word choice. "It could be worse. Blake still has us beat though; a wet wondering whale will wail while welting and waiting in a well."

Weiss took back the wine and sipped, irked by her friend's dissapointment. "Lies. Sun came up with it." Without warning, the heiress's laughter filled the cramped room. "Remember what Coco said? I mean, it wasn't that funny, but the look on Velvet's face, she was so embarrassed. What was it? Pussies parade pretend passiveness pertaining particularly to penises?" Weiss leaned over as her chest heaved for air, her face quickly turning red. "Velvet's face!" she cried.

"Freaking Coco," Yang chuckled, grinning from ear to ear, a little red herself. "Weiss, I can't believe you just said that, I can't un-hear it. Nope. Never say that again please."

They went on to laugh a little more before the amusement faded away and they were reminded of reality, a sad look permeating their faces.

"Well, what's your plan for reclaiming Vale?" Yang eventually asked, now bored of the depressed silence.

"What?" the other asked cooly.

"You heard what they said. With the area around Vale mostly evacuated, we should be ready to start counter attacking."

Weiss blew her own raspberry. "I don't know. If we still had destroyers in the air, I'd air strike first and foremost, but that's not happening, at least not anytime soon. I might side with Jaune's idea if we convene for war council, but more importantly, we have Nevermores approaching." Weiss directed Yang's attention forward where, sure enough, a murder of Nevermores flew in formation.

"Hmm," was her first reaction. She checked the gauge that read out her munitions, the number displayed always less than desired. "That's some annoying bullshit," she grumbled in apathy.

"Yes we have to engage, we can't let them target anyone less prepared." Weiss patted the pilot on the shoulder and stepped out of the cockpit, taking to one of the seats and strapping in.

Yang flicked down her targeting visor and craned her neck, the satisfying sound of bones popping clearing her mind. Xiou Long may have been chosen to pilot their special crafts due to her lower mortality probability, but it took more than toughness to keep a high priority target in the air. That is to say, Yang was a good pilot.

Back to where they had left before, the redhead marched with a gentle yet imposing grace, a sea of refugees parting for her while weakly reaching out in hopes of being somehow blessed. She smiled down to each of them, her nearly perfect face easing their panicked minds. Only a scar that ran horizontal through her right eye brow, effectively segmenting the hairs to a top and bottom side, lingered to remind others that she was flawed. A stocky man that came up to her collar followed behind her, features shaking as he filled her in on the situation.

Exiting the warehouse of people and finding themselves regrettably once again in the cold, Pyrrha turned and faced the man, and she took a while to compose her words.

He caught a pained look glimmer through a confident and humbled facade, and in turn felt humbled himself. He diverted his eyes, but couldn't help feeling guilty about avoiding Pyrrha's polite gaze and so looked back to her.

A voice befitting her outward demeanor spoke her thoughts, strong but tender. "I would be honored to hold a memorial service," she nodded, "and I will do all I am able to fight along side the soldier's of Atlas. Tell you're people to rest easy, for I leave now to liberate them. I promise all of you a better tomorrow." She closed her eyes and bowed her head, bothered by the lack of overt happiness in the man.

A hand reached for her shoulder, clasping only tight enough to make her feel through her many layers of clothes. He pulled her into a huddle and said in hushed words, "what you're doing is fantastic beyond measures, but don't lie to me." A smile creeped on his face, one of friendly knowing. "As a man of limited strategic knowledge, all I can ask is that you help our soldiers." She winced at the word 'strategic'. "We're aren't winning a war anytime soon, and false hope will kill our chances faster than the Grimm. So I suggest miss Nikos, do what you know how to do best, and don't overextend yourself. Insert some maxim about a healthy mind and something cringe-y, just tell me what you want to do, and what you're going to do."

Reluctance plagued her movements, but she straightened her back and looked out to the dark and cold of a soon to be winter wasteland. "Thank you. I want to find Grimm, and I want to hunt them. I'll go where ever you can point me."

Sure enough, his arm lifted and a finger casted a clear direction. "20 degrees North by North-East, the road is getting buried and no one is going to clear it anytime soon, so follow that direction and you'll find a village with some Hunters." Resting his arm, he continued. "Should take a few hours of walking if you're not slow. Got a compass?"

Reaching inside her clothes, Pyrrha extracted a brass compass etched with a scene of wheat fields waving to the wind under a bright sun. Flipping it open, she confirmed the directions with an adjustable arm in the unlikely case she forgot where she was going. Nodding to the man, she kicked up some snow as she turned and started her march.

"Going already? Not even hungry?"

"Yes, I mustn't keep those men waiting. Thank you."

-End Chapter 2-


End file.
